Philly Police to experiment with body camera program, but will it protect your rights?

As respect of civil liberties by police continues to be called into serious question nationwide, the Philadelphia Police Department is coincidentally beginning a pilot program to protect citizens’ rights: cameras mounted on police recording each interaction cops have with citizens.

That is, everyone’s behavior changes if they know they’re being recorded unless they’re police in Ferguson, Missouri, based upon recent headlines.

Still, the move is a good one for civil liberties. A serious problem with these cameras exists, though: In the absence of strict controls, cops can start or stop the recording whenever they want. And, inter-department directives, guidelines, or memos telling police to always record encounters don’t really solve the problem, either.

Balko insists that we not only should have public access to these videos but that citizens “need to ensure police agencies implement rules requiring officers to actually use the cameras, enforce those rules by disciplining officers when they don’t and ensure that the officers, the agencies that employ them, and prosecutors all take care to preserve footage, even if the footage reflect poorly on officers.”

Here in Philadelphia, the body mounted cameras are simply being tested at this point to see what they’re like, writes Larry Miller for the Tribune. “Ramsey said the department isn’t buying the equipment,” Miller writes, “just testing it, which could happen either by the end of this year or early in 2015.”

About The Author

Josh Kruger is an award-winning writer and commentator in Philadelphia. His @PhillyWeekly column, “The Uncomfortable Whole,” took the 2014 First Place Spotlight Award for weekly newspaper commentary from the Society of Professional Journalists and the 2014 Second Place Award for weekly newspaper commentary in the United States and Canada from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. He also blogs daily for PW on various topics including queer culture and news, mass transit, politics, crime, drugs, HIV/AIDS, civil liberties, activism, media and everything else Philly.